There exists a great demand for food products especially prepared for consumption by young children and physically infirm persons. These individuals are frequently unable to properly chew or otherwise digest certain food products, such as meat, whose natural composition renders such digestion difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,615,693 describes a process for preparing ready-to-eat meat products for this class of consumers. First, naturally occurring raw animal flesh is emulsified, i.e., divided into particles of a size indiscernible to the naked eye. Reduction to this size eliminates the need for strenuous mastication and otherwise facilitates digestion. The meat emulsion thus obtained is then prepared for actual consumption by passing the emulsion through an extruder plate. The extruder has a knife on its outside surface which cuts the emulsion into discrete food portions of an aesthetically pleasing size.
Heretofore, these food portions have been gravity fed into a container of hot aqueous solution for cooking and combining with other food ingredients. It has been found that the receiving solution needs to be of a temperature about 50.degree. Fahrenheit higher than the temperature required to coagulate the meat in order to prevent disassociation of the reformed meat portions.
One disadvantge of this process is that there has been a tendency for the food emulsion particularly in the case of meat, to clog the perforations of the extruder plate, causing the food to cease its advance through the plate. Production must then halt while the extruder mechanism is disassembled to clean the plate. The need to eliminate this inefficient and expensive unclogging procedure has been recognized. One aspect of the present invention involves use of dual cutting knives to solve this problem. While in other contexts cutting knives have been provided on both the inside and the outside surfaces of the extruder plate, such features have not addressed the problems associated with the reforming of food portions from a food emulsion.
Problems have also arisen in the transportation of the reformed food portions from the outside surface of the extruder plate to the cooking solution. It is normal for the reformed portions to congregate for a period in the area at the outside surface of the extruder plate, thereby causing the portions to agglomerate or to adhere to surfaces of the mechanism. The food portions are sticky and delicate. Their adherence either to one another or to the exterior knife assembly can cause them to lose their size uniformity or to disintegrate entirely.